The Determinants of Strategic Information System Planning (SISP) Success: A Proposed Framework for Small and Medium-Sized Enterprises (SMEs)

Raja Ali,Rosli Mohamad,Alexei Tretiakov

doi:10.5171/2013.348197

Abstract

The growing importance of Information System (IS) to support business operation demands for adequate IS planning. Good IS planning enables organizations to closely align the IS and strategic business objectives. Such alignment ultimately ensures organizations to gain competitive advantages from IS-related investment. Despite extensive works to understand SISP practices in large organizations, works are still limited in the context of Small and Medium Enterprise (SMEs). This issue is worth further investigation in view of the increasing importance of IS to support many facets of the SMEs operation. More importantly, due to inherent resource constraints among SMEs to invest in IS, top management commitment as well as user participation in IS planning activities are getting more crucial. This study, therefore proposes a framework to assess the effect of top management commitment and user participation on SISP success. The findings are of relevance for firm’s top management in ensuring SISP success.

Highlights

The dependency of business on Information Systems (IS) in daily operations suggests that the organizations need to pay more attention to the IS planning which aims to facilitate the achievement of the organization's business goals (Basu et al, 2002)
Responding to the research objectives highlighted and literature review discussion, this paper proposes to examine the effect of top management commitment and user participation on Strategic Information System Planning (SISP) success from Small and Medium-Sized Enterprises (SMEs) perspective
Earlier literature concentrates heavily on understanding IS planning practice among large organizations with very limited focus given on the SMEs

Summary

Introduction

The dependency of business on Information Systems (IS) in daily operations suggests that the organizations need to pay more attention to the IS planning which aims to facilitate the achievement of the organization's business goals (Basu et al, 2002). Large firms, IS practices among the smaller firms have received somewhat limited attention in previous works (Powell & Woerndl, 2008). This clearly contradicts the fact that the SMEs form a major component of established business in most countries. Considering the emerging importance of IS in one hand, and firm challenges to embrace IS effectively on the other, it is incumbent to understand what makes successful SISP in the context of the SMEs sector. In view of limited empirical studies available, this study is proposed to examine the effect of top management commitment and user participation on SISP success amongst the SMEs. This paper is organized as follows. Authors reserves the last section for the conclusion of the proposed study

Literature Review

Research Method

Findings

Conclusion